Detection of Malignancy in Body Fluids: A Comparison of the Hematology and Cytology Laboratories

Abstract

An increasing burden is loaded on clinical laboratories for daily testing of body fluids, including pleural fluid, peritoneal fluid (ascites), pericardial fluid, and cerebrospinal fluid. The request for detection of cellular components in the body fluid samples is usually delivered simultaneously to the hospital’s hematology laboratory and cytology laboratory. The medical technologists of hematology laboratory provide the screening result for suspicious malignant cells; meanwhile, the pathologists of cytology laboratory provide the presence of cancer cells at a diagnostic level. However, unfortunately, neither of these results reaches 100% sensitivity or specificity. To assess the clinical practice values, the present study performed a comparison of the hematology and cytology laboratories on the detection of malignancy in body fluids.